Initially published on 9th November 2004 in Buzzle Excerpt: Which are the major historical-cultural foundations on which the future Afghani education should be based? Ten major topics of historical evolution and cultural achievement are to be present in this regard. Even if only one is missing, the result is going to be an unbalanced or minimized perception of the dimensions of the Afghanistan’s contribution to the History of the Mankind. In the past, several of these pillars were present, but undermined, other pillars were totally absent, and finally one pillar was excessively over-accentuated and misleadingly presented. In the rest of the present article, the Ten Pillars are briefly specified; at the same time, special consideration is given to the way they should be presented through the 12-year obligatory Education that the current Afghani government has to promulgate. Every cultural – historical unity must be present at all levels: History, Literature, Language, Art History, History of the Religion, Philosophy, including also Sciences, i.e. Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Cosmology.

1. Ten Pillars of Education for
Afghanistan
An analysis of the negative colonial impact on Afghanistan, followed by
several proposals for the introduction of a post-colonial educational system
that will help modern Afghanis discover their multicultural identity, assess
properly their great past, and envision a democratic future.
Ten Pillars of Education for Afghanistan
An effort to initiate multi-ethnic, multicultural, multilingual and multi-
religious concepts, approaches and practices in Afghanistan – in replacement
of the Islamic extremism and barbarism.
By Prof. Dr Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
At the moment of emergence of a new, post-colonial country at the heights of
Hindu-Kush, and following the official announcement of the results of the
presidential elections, it is necessary to reconsider many of our fixed ideas
about Central Asia, and more specifically about Afghanistan.
The Disastrous ColonialScheme
Afghanistan emerges after many centuries of implacable and destructive
involvement of the colonial countries, namely Russia (temporarily
transfigured as USSR for the period 1917 – 1991), England, and France. It
would be actually wrong to think that Russia – USSR and England were the
only foreign powers involved in the case of Afghanistan. France’s recent
involvement in the reconstruction campaign does not testify to a
hypothetically positive attitude or to a constructive willingness, but to the
existence of serious French interests that go far beyond the level of personal
connections (Massoud, Bernard Henri Levy).
In the case of Afghanistan, as well as elsewhere, the quintessence of
colonialism is not attested only in terms of brutal, locally exercised, power; it
consists mainly in a vicious geo-strategic plan of a world dominated by
France, Russia and England. This geo-strategic plan has been carried out
through a) military and political presence, b) vicious and pernicious
ideological infiltration, c) sophisticated political machinations, and/or d) a
combination of the aforementioned.
In the case of Afghanistan, it is quite well known that there could not be any
French military or political presence, since France did not possess any land
dominion nearby Afghanistan (contrarily to Russia, which expanded in
Central Asia, and to England, which colonized India). There was however a

2. French ideological infiltration in Afghanistan; it was accomplished through
the diffusion of the theory of Nationalism, as well as following the
propagation of various Western historical, philosophical, and ideological
concepts that were irrelevant of, and alien for, Afghanistan. In addition, there
were sophisticated political machinations based upon the aforementioned
false and misleading concepts.
The 'secret', ultimate goal of these machinations was the collapse of the
Iranian Empire that was the great unifying factor of culture, education, and
political order east of the Ottoman Empire. Iran extended throughout the
Iranian plateau, from Mesopotamia and Caucasus to Central Asia, and in
addition, it had borders with another great Muslim state, the Mughal Empire
of India. The three great Muslim empires, namely the Ottoman Caliphate,
Iran, and Mughal India, made it possible for anyone living 300 years ago to
move from the westernmost confines of the Mediterranean to the area of
Indochina and Indonesia by crossing only two borders! The collapse and
destruction of these three powerful Muslim empires could not happen
without the spread of falsehood, division, hatred, rebellion, strife, wars, and
miseries that were all based on the pernicious concept of ‘differentiation’.
This bogus-concept was projected to various indigenous nations and peoples
of diverse ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural backgrounds across the
world in order to function as fratricidal enmity among compatriots, rivalry
among coreligionists, and polarization among neighbors. The false concept of
'differentiation' largely expanded through the theory of Nationalism that was
perniciously presented as 'ultimate salvation' and an all-times panacea to the
peoples concerned. Insignificant, quasi-inexistent, analphabetic, tribal leaders
were promised great wealth and undreamt power, if they were to turn against
the Sultan, the Shah, and the Great Mughal! It would be very mistaken to
think that the false concept was applied everywhere! In many cases where it
did not cope with the colonial interests, it was completely 'forgotten'. All this
disastrous work emanated mostly from France, and only to lesser extent from
England, Russia, Germany and other European powers.
In this regard, it is essential to understand that the false theory that an
‘Afghani’ needed a state apart, other than Persia or Mughal India, was
properly 'decorated' with numerous elements of cultural localism, and with
an unprecedented accentuation of the differences that may exist between let
us say Herat and Tabriz!
This was made deliberately and very maliciously; if there was truth in it,
Catalonia should have been urged to get independence from Spain long ago!
If the intention of the criminal colonial powers were true, Scotland should
have already got its independence, and Ireland should not have been plunged
into the terrible bloodshed, which left that island divided until now, and
inhabited by so sparse population. Even more so, the abominable cemetery of

3. peoples named ‘France’ should never have existed, and in the place of that
butchery, a great number of independent states should have been formed,
namely Brittany, Corsica, Alsace – Lorraine, Occitania, and Basque country
(Euskadi), whereas the rest should have been called Gaul, not France.
Along with nationalism, France imposed – through the bias of its militant and
deeply ideologized bogusuniversities – a totally false, absolutely dogmatic,
and viciously perverted version of History, as well as cultural, educational,
ideological, and political theories and doctrines that do not correspond to the
natural and authentic interests, the cultural background, and the diachronic
characteristics of the various indigenous nations in Afghanistan. To them was
therefore projected and imposed a vision of the World, according to which
Afghanistan's 'independence' would become the only means to get rid of the
hypothetically permanent underdevelopment, the colonially provoked
misery, the abject poverty, and the country's supposed cultural alienation
from a "fast changing world".
For the anti-human needs of France, Russia and England, the different nations
that found themselves locked within Afghanistan's fake borders never
managed to form a highly civilized province of a great empire, and they were
always either semi-barbaric, miserable, and marginal populations of a great
empire or subject of a rather small, independent but unimportant, kingdom.
Both colonial versions of distorted History are absolute worthless and totally
erroneous.
Actually, Afghanistan was not the only victim of the colonial scheme and
historical distortions; dozens of fake, impotent and invalid states in Asia and
Africa emerged out of the malicious destruction of the three, aforementioned,
great Muslim countries. Part of the French colonial machination has also been
the local rise of an anti-nationalist, bogus-Islamic opposition that was not
based on the cultural background of the historical Islam but emanated from a
long procedure of ideological - theoretical deformation and theological
alteration of the top concepts of the Islamic Golden Age civilization. French
and other European colonialists did not produce this development directly,
but they were able to easily maneuver its basic factors, i.e. the analphabetic
and uneducated local religious leaders and the barbaric, tribal rulers, who
were taught by the colonial agents how to become traitors and outlaws, how
to hate the royal authority of their own country, and how to spread
discordance and disaster in their own land.
More precisely, the epicenter of the entire colonial machination was the
following scheme: having noticed that within the 17th and 18th Muslim world
the ailing political, intellectual and academic establishments of Istanbul,
Esfahan, and Delhi were facing a challenge because of the rise of uneducated,
obscurantist, and falsifying theologians (who gradually gained control of the
masses, and plunged their respective countries in absolute barbarism, without

4. facing serious obstacles in their perverted activities), France, Russia and
England acted as an authentic ally of these barbaric, anti-Islamic theologians
of the lower and illiterate classes.
Thus, the colonial powers placed the Sultan, the Shah and the Great Mughal
in a most difficult position, and triggered developments that brought about
the ultimate collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Iran and Mughal India; this was
the paranoid target of France, Russia and England. And it was paranoid,
because this was the only development that could bring forth the Islamic
Terrorism, as it finally did.
In other words, by doing so and demolishing the three Muslim empires, the
colonial powers made it possible that the Islamic radicalism, extremism,
terrorism and suicide bombing could happen at a later day, when the
unprecedented explosion could not be averted anymore. By destroying the
only obstacle to what has been by definition threat no 1 within our global
world, the colonial powers are the only responsible for all the negative
developments that were unfolded over the past 100-150 years in the Middle
East, Central Asia and Africa.
Focusing on their destructive work of infiltration, we can note that the
colonial powers proceeded to even worse attempts of infiltration that
precipitated even worse developments; they pushed toward a limited
westernization by educating local, tiny elites-to-be in the split provinces of the
three collapsed empires. While doing so, they were fully aware of the fact that
the only opposition to this westernization would not come from the old,
highly civilized, intellectual, academic and scientific imperial Islamic class,
which had meanwhile collapsed and disappeared, but from the still existing,
uneducated, ignorant and barbaric, false sheikhs, who would therefore be left
alone in 'representing' (but in real terms: "discrediting") Islam.
The ensuing juxtaposition and polarization would condemn these split
provinces of empires to permanent underdevelopment and ethnic, cultural
and intellectual disaster. In addition, it would never allow again the rise of an
authentic Islamic cultural, intellectual, academic, scientific, and imperial
establishment and state, which would be at the antipodes of the modern low-
class, uneducated, and literally illiterate pseudo-Islamic sheikhs of hatred and
darkness, the likes of Khomeini, sheikh Shaarawi, sheikh Qaradawi, and the
notorious Pashto apocalyptic figure, Mullah Umar. This seems to have been
the central target of the perverted French colonial strategy, but of course it
testifies to extreme paranoia, since this would greatly contribute, as it actually
already did, to Islamic radicalism, extremism, and terrorism.
Certainly, this is not the way the colonial powers expected things to come to
pass, but – again – this is an additional proof of their superficial approach, of
their interest for provisory profit, and of their long-term catastrophic

5. performance. Acting in the way we have just described, the colonial powers
were misled to believe that their colonial 'achievements' would guarantee
a) immersion of the true Muslim world in decay and asphyxia of the Islamic
intellect and genius for many long centuries,
b) total misrepresentation of Islam by the barbaric and semi -cannibalistic
sheikhs for a very long period,
c) permanent defamation of Islam, artificially made to be considered by
misinformed and ignorant masses across the Western world as the basic
'enemy',
d) formation of enormous masses of ignorant, illiterate, uneducated, besotted
and fanaticized masses that could be easily maneuvered and permanently
exploited, and – last but not least –
e) irrevocable lack of any major theoretical, scientific, intellectual, artistic, and
imperial creativity and inventiveness within the area of Islam.
Exit from the Colonial Era
First to get out of this vicious circle was Turkey; the country at the junction of
two continents rejected the Caliphate and the catastrophically false version of
Islam in which France passionately and devotedly attempted to have all the
Muslim countries permanently engulfed and submerged, because this false
Islam ensures permanent dependence, underdevelopment, analphabetism,
ignorance, poverty, starvation, pestilence and misery, as we have already
seen.
It would be very wrong to interpret the colossal work of Mustafa Kemal
Pasha Ataturk as imitation of French policies and as an application of French
prescriptions. Of course, one could be left with the impression that this great
work – undertaken in the 1920s and the 30s – looks like implementation of
French concepts and prescriptions! However, tackling a subject like that, one
should first consider how similar France and America look to each other, and
how different they truly are, and have always been.
Truly speaking, Ataturk is much closer to the Great Founding Fathers of
America than to Robespierre and Napoleon, let alone Poincare and
Clemenceau! He certainly had to stress the unifying concept 'one people – one
nation', but he actually led the Turks to a pertinent introspection and to an
accurate study of their past, including Hittites, Luwites, Hatti, Urartu,
Assyrians, Sumerians, Persians, Greeks and Romans, i.e. not only the cultural
background of the Turkic peoples and the input of Islamic civilization.
Ataturk broke down the colonial, typically French, concept (which became a
persistently sought political – cultural target of France) that a Moroccan, a
Lebanese, an Abyssinian, an Indian and an Indonesian are obliged to go to a
European capital in order to study the past of their respective countries best.
The rejection of the disastrous French policies and the imitation of the
American innovative and emancipative model are quite indicative, if one

6. compares Turkey to backward Egypt with respect to the local academic,
educational and cultural progress made in the study of the indigenous past
civilizations, languages and scriptures. More than 100 years after the
monumental publication 'Description de l’ Egypte' and the decipherment of
the Egyptian Hieroglyphics by J. F. Champollion, there was not a single
Egyptian historian, archeologist or philologist specialized in Egyptology at a
European university professor’s level.
Thanks to Ataturk, in Turkey there were – already when he was alive –
Turkish experts on Hittite Civilization and historians and philologists
specializing in 2nd millennium BCE Anatolian languages and writing
systems, i.e. scholars who partly contributed to the decipherment of the
Hittite itself and helped unearth a great part of Hittite, Hatti, Luwian, and
Assyrian antiquities. The difference in the matter, between enlightened
Turkey and obscurantist Egypt, is absolutely chaotic!
Truly speaking, one cannot find a single country where the French colonial
model was applied – from Morocco to Egypt and from Syria to Madagascar,
from Greece to Vietnam and from Lebanon to Abyssinia – in which the past of
the country itself is better studied locally than in the universities of the
colonial countries of Europe and in North America! The only exception in this
regard is until now Turkey!
Ataturk also broke down the French deceitful colonial scheme, according to
which in a colonized country no one cares or is able to study the past of
numerous other peoples and civilizations in depth and in an academically
proper manner – without silly references to the Quran. Again, if one tries
nowadays to search from Indonesia to Morocco and from Kazakhstan to
Tanzania, one cannot find a single colonized country where the past of
numerous other civilizations can be studied, investigated, taught and debated
in a university or research center as properly as it can be in European and
North American universities. Turkey is different in this as well.
PresentDay Challenges
Like any other development, situation and scheme across Human History, the
colonial scheme was meant to end one way or another. Instead of Turkey
mounting a counter-attack against the colonial powers, the Islamic Terrorism,
which is an authentic consequence of the colonial scheme, brought America
against the unrepentant colonial powers, France, England and Russia, now
purposelessly followed by Germany.
What the entire world came to notice very well during the Second Gulf War,
namely the formation of an axis against America, is the final reaction of the
ailing and collapsing colonial powers. With a strong diplomatic past, and
with impressive experience in the falsification and the hypocrisy needed, the
colonial powers created the false impression that they were striving for peace,

7. that they wished to reach the solution of the 'Iraqi' problem through peace,
and that they had a humanitarian face. If all this had truly been their policy,
they would not have interfered in the Middle East, in Central Asia, in India, in
Indochina - Indonesia, and in Africa during the three last centuries. The
miserable and execrable French president, attempting to veto a UN resolution
for War against Saddam Hussein, should not be considered as just a war
criminal but as a serial killer; he should be held responsible for three centuries
of criminal colonial acts, murders and genocides.
The September 11th events could truly mark the beginning of a great change
in the world, heralding the irrevocable end of the colonial times, and the
ultimate and severe punishment of France. Being threatened, America started
immediately a global war against Terrorism. This instinctive reaction turns
automatically against the world as conceived and machinated by France,
Russia, England, and the other colonial powers, notably Holland, Belgium,
Spain and Portugal).
One should also expect that these developments could to bring – amongst
others – an end to French presence outside Europe, in a similar way to what
happened to Spain at the end of the 19th c. and the beginning of the 20th c.
To eradicate Islamic Terrorism, America has to put an end to the entire,
colonial scheme, and to bring down the perilous fabrication of the nationalist
states that have to be replaced by larger alliances of free, democratic,
consciously multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multi-lingual
entities. At the same time, to annihilate the factory that produces the Islamic
Terrorism, America has to bring a dead end to the local representatives of
Jacques Chirac, i.e. the realm of obscurantist, illiterate, uneducated, fanatic
sheikhs of hatred, who took hold of Islam over the past centuries, properly
working for the French colonial interests – without even knowing it.
A second mandate for President Bush may be an opportunity for him to
attempt a deeper and better understanding of the causes of Islamic Terrorism;
this may lead the American Administration to the decision to tackle the issue
at its real birth place, i.e. the criminal system of the colonial, Orientalist-
invented, locally projected, culturally de-personifying, identity-depriving
bogus-education that still exists in all former colonies worldwide.
The international involvement in Afghanistan – under American impulse –
should therefore take the form of the initiation of the Afghani people into the
depth of their country's great cultural past, into the riches of the diachronic
Afghani multi-cultural identity, as well as into the perspectives of a
educationally, academically, intellectually developed, culturally extroverted
country, which rightfully appears to be a UN member state and must
therefore shine worldwide instead of being immerged in the Hell of colonial
Islamism.

8. The Educational Reconstruction ofAfghanistan
This great effort has to start precisely from the point many American
universities have reached, namely
a) the rejection of the French and European Greco-Romano-centrism as
colonial times' racism,
and
b) the refutation of the French and European Orientalism as cultural -
academic discrimination.
American scholars like Martin Bernal, the famous author of Black Athena, and
Edouard Said, well known for his celebrated 'Orientalism', have made
significant breakthroughs in this regard over the past two decades. The same
is true about the 'Afro-centric' academic circles, who oppose the colonial
times' distortions and deviations, falsifications and myths. Yet, all these
innovative and elaborate approaches are still prohibited in the bogus
universities of criminal colonial state of France – let alone the academic and
educational institutions of former French and English colonies.
It is therefore necessary to enumerate here the reasons for which the
mendacious French academia shaped Orientalist disciplines and attempted to
interpret and 'mend' the Middle East, Africa, and Asia through their false
theoretical fabrications.
The French concept of Orientalism has been developed in order to
1. disentangle the various nations of Afghanistan, Central Asia, Siberia,
China, South-Southeast Asia, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe,
and Africa from their traditional culture,
2. deprive the colonized nations from their true identity,
3. prevent the colonized nations from accessing and reassessing their
historical past accurately and in its true dimensions,
4. strip them from their immense, enduring and multifaceted, historical
interconnection,
5. disconnect them culturally, educationally, academically, and intellectually
from one another,
6. dispossess all Asiatic, European and African nations from their Pre-Islamic,
Oriental past, culture, and civilization, as if Pre-Islamic Antiquity were
something absolutely dead, definitely dissociated from modern times'
Muslims, and totally unrelated to their present identity {This totally contrary
to what the vicious French 'scholars' and Paris' villainous 'intellectuals' had
done and kept doing in regard with the Greek and Roman past and its
relationship with the modern European peoples.},
7. Systematically, methodically and monstrously minimize the unprecedented
and unequalled impact that the Oriental Civilizations had on the formation of
all aspects of civilization, culture, knowledge, ideology, art and behavior
among the Ancient Greeks and the Romans, and

9. 8. dissociate the classical Islamic civilization, its secular imperial reality, its
enlightened society, and its tolerant manners, from the modern identity of
numerous Asiatic, African and European nations.
The question conscious Afghanis and anti-colonial Americans must today put
in front of them is the following:
- How can today's Afghanis imitate the Turks of the 1920s and the 1930s and
how can they re-install national sovereignty, identity reassessment, cultural
and intellectual independence from alien colonial ideologies (like Islamism),
educational and academic emancipation (from the bogus-historical dogmas
of Hellenism / Greco-Romano-centrism and Orientalism) and socio-political
self-respect?
We certainly live in a very different world, which has little to do with the
years that heralded the Great Depression and the rise of Middle European
totalitarianism that was also a direct reaction to colonialism. Multi-cultural,
multi-linguistic, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious environment is by now a
wholly respected reality, whereas back in the 1920s the colonial need for
setting up compact – and quite artificial – nations was still prevailing!
Nowadays, a variety of small communities, democratically ruled and
incorporated into a larger context, is the quintessence of the modern quest for
the best sociopolitical solution of the problems that our multi-divided world
faces.
Within this context, we cannot afford anymore to tolerate the criminal French
strategy of setting up and diffusing bogus historical dogmas, thus engulfing
the global community into cultural discrimination, educational and economic
underdevelopment, and hideous barbarism that the recent cases of the
Algerian butchery and the Rwandan genocide have effectively but tragically
highlighted.
We cannot truly afford to accept the French and English malignant policies of
different measures and rules as per the different places where the vicious
French and English colonials may wish to apply them. What is intellectually,
academically, educationally, culturally and socio-politically 'correct' and
'good' for Europe is also 'constructive' and 'positive' for the Middle East,
Africa, Central Asia, and all the other parts of the world. Before eventually
joining larger unions, small but multi-ethnic countries have to go federal or to
split in common agreement and understanding. The best example is given by
the former Czechoslovakia that first split into the Czech Republic and
Slovakia, only to later find another type of unity within the European Union.
The way for Afghanistan is the strict and all-committed declaration of
acknowledged multiculturalism. Better this is understood in Kabul, faster
progress, speedier development and more overwhelming change will come to
Afghanistan. The best way for today's Afghanistan to forge an exemplary

10. multicultural society and state in Central Asia is to focus heavily and
extensively on Education, Primary, Secondary, and Academic Education. This
will help Afghanistan be totally transformed, and turn from a rogue/pariah
state to a regional model able to boldly apply multiculturalism, something
that is banned by totalitarian, colonial and tyrannical France, labeled as
'communautarisme'.
Do not listen to bribed gangsters who wear the evil mask of an innocent
person and pretend that change in Afghanistan needs two or three
generations to come! It is a matter of 10-15 years at the most, and the
illustrious example of Kemal Ataturk terminates all discussions, intentions
and pretentions.
It is actually urgent that Afghanistan finds out the key to the successful
establishment of a multi-cultural society on its soil! Major changes are
pending in Iran, Pakistan and Syria in the years ahead; not before too long
theoretical approaches to an eventual Union of the Middle East, Caucasus and
Central Asia will emanate from various emerging political groups that intend
to totally annihilate the disastrous colonial work of division, which was
shamefully promoted by France. According to these forthcoming political
approaches, Turkey should become the spearhead of the regional
development and the natural leader towards multiculturalism in an effort to
establish a pluralistic democratic society for 450 million people who will share
common traditions and interests. Afghanistan must be therefore ready for
such a large Asiatic Union.
From the earliest moments and the first steps of the cultural de-colonization
effort, a fresh, multicultural wind must enter the Afghani Education manuals.
History, History of Religions, Languages and Literatures, Art History,
Philosophy, Geography, Ethics, and Civic Education must be properly
represented within new manuals in a way to establish a completely different
set up of concepts and ideas and a new Afghani mindset!
Modern Bactrians must become proud for the greatness of their past, and as
open-minded as their land has always been open to so many circulating
faiths, religions, concepts and world views. This new educational system
must have solid foundations on the real history of that great land, be it called
Bactria, Kushan or Afghanistan. It must make all the ethnic, cultural,
linguistic and religious groups of Afghanistan feel that they are all equally
present and equally represented in the shaping of a democratic country. This
education must reflect pertinently the diachronic aspects and characteristics
of that land, its monuments, as well as the historical texts that relate to its
past. The overall contribution of Bactria / Kushan / Afghanistan to the World
History must be sufficiently presented.
In this regard, it is essential to avoid typical colonial ‘traps’, namely

11. a) the forged historiography fabricated by the French bogus academic school
of the Annales (which is an extremist form of materialistic and evolutionist
indoctrination that makes of the economy the central part of human interests),
b) the demand for proportional re-presentation of each community according
to terms of population, since this allows – sooner or later – the stronger group
to achieve a very controversial and definitely partial sovereignty, which can
be later used by that group against all the rest, and
c) the oblivion of past cultural elements (under the pretext that they ceased to
exist).
It is essential to understand that, if the US fails to achieve – as soon as possible
– a proper and complete implementation of multiculturalism in Afghanistan,
"History will be repeated as a farce", and one group will try to impose itself
on the rest. Then, everything will turn into a nightmare that will be good only
for the apparent, unholy, alliance between Ossama bin Laden and the French
and English political and 'academic' establishment.
In this regard, it is clear that the educational system of some countries can be
taken as a good example. Italy offers a first example; the ancient Romans are
not there anymore, but the average Italian education is abundant in Latin
texts and in references to the Ancient Roman culture and civilization. The
ancient Ionians ceased to exist, but they are present indeed in the manuals of
Philosophy of the Greek secondary education; these manuals are extensive
indeed, when it comes to the Pre-Socratic philosophers of Ionia.
It must therefore be clearly understood that historical sources must be
included in the secondary education manuals, translated into Afghanistan's
modern languages; Afghani schoolchildren must read excerpts from all major
historical sources that have been unearthed on Afghani soil. The above must
become a primary target for the educational reform in Afghanistan from the
very early stages of the reconstruction effort. All historical stages, Pre-Islamic
and Islamic, must be thoroughly presented and the respective educational
material must be made available to all the Afghani schoolchildren and
students in the same abundant and extensive way. This reality cannot be
compromised without a serious overall setback.
Methodsand approaches
Which methods and approaches should become the basis of the new Afghani
educational system?
A. When it comes to the historical past, all the civilizations, cultures,
ideologies, and religions, as well as all state formations established and
developed on Afghani soil should be approached in terms of equity, historical
relativity, free understanding, and all-committed acceptance of the culturally

12. 'other'.
B. The languages of the various linguistic groups and communities of
Afghanistan must be employed at the level of the primary and secondary
education: Hazaragi, Dari, Uzbek, Turkmen and Pashto speaking people must
have 12-year education in their respective languages. They all must be raised
to the level of official language of the country.
C. A great selection of local, regional, and international languages must be
offered to the young Afghani schoolchildren and students. Multilingualism is
among the top desiderata of multiculturalism.
D. To all schoolchildren and students in Afghanistan a second local language
should be obligatory for 9 years, but throughout the country any local
language selected as second local language should not be offered to more
than 40% of the students, so that a balanced situation is ultimately created.
E. A 12-year syllabus of 'first foreign language’ must be complemented by a 6-
year syllabus of second foreign language; for both syllabuses the languages
possible to learn should be Chinese, Turkish, Farsi, Urdu, Russian, German
and English. Again, throughout the country any selected as second foreign
language should not be offered to more than 33% of the number of the
students, so that a balanced situation is created in this regard as well.
Ten Pillars of Successful Education for Afghanistan
Which are the major historical-cultural foundations on which the future
Afghani education should be based?
Ten major topics of historical evolution and cultural achievement are to be
present in this regard. Even if only one is missing, the result is going to be an
unbalanced or minimized perception of the dimensions of the Afghanistan’s
contribution to the History of the Mankind. In the past, several of these pillars
were present, but undermined, other pillars were totally absent, and finally
one pillar was excessively over-accentuated and misleadingly presented. In
the rest of the present article, the Ten Pillars are briefly specified; at the same
time, special consideration is given to the way they should be presented
through the 12-year obligatory Education that the current Afghani
government has to promulgate.
Every cultural – historical unity must be present at all levels: History,
Literature, Language, Art History, History of the Religion, Philosophy,
including also Sciences, i.e. Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and
Cosmology.
The First Pillar is Iran.

13. One should take into consideration the fact that in the great spiritual,
cosmological and eschatological systems that are known as Ancient Iranian
religion (namely Zoroastrianism, Zendism, and Mazdeism: the three
successive official religious dogmas of Achaemenid, Arsacid and Sassanid
times), we come across the division of the entire surface of the Earth into Iran
(conceived as the realm of Ahura Mazda - God) and 'Aniran' (perceived as the
dominion of Ahriman - Evil). As per this approach, the entire area of today's
Afghanistan belongs always to Iran.
The spiritual, religious approach was however the imperial reality for almost
three millennia of Pre-Islamic and Islamic Iranian civilization, because the
area of Afghanistan consisted in important Iranian provinces. Many
important Iranian figures, throughout the Pre-Islamic and the Islamic times,
from Zoroaster (Zardosht) to Djelaleddin Roumi were born on Afghanistan's
soil. Knowledge about Pre-Islamic Iran – as is meant here – is therefore
essential for any Afghani.
The Second Pillar is the Kingdom ofBactria.
This pillar of historical – national education reflects the first period during
which an important kingdom was formed with capital located on present day
Afghani soil. A wide range of subjects - encompassing geopolitics (the area's
importance for Alexander’s penetration to India), culture (Macedonian and
Greek civilization elements having been diffused on Afghani soil due to the
new settlers, i.e. Alexander's soldiers and diadochoi / successors), imperial
relations (the interconnection of the Kingdom of Bactria with Arsacid Iran,
their common stance against Seleucid Syria, and Balkh – Bactra's impact on
Indus Valley states) and spirituality (the prominent, sacred place that
Iskander Dhou’ l Qarnayn holds in the Islamic Tradition) - will help the
Afghanis get familiarized with Central, Southern and Western Asia, as well as
with the Mediterranean world. At the same time, this pillar allows a better
focus on the province of Nuristan, where Pre-Islamic cultures of Iranian–
Bactrian background survived down to our days, as it also happens in the
Northern provinces of neighboring Pakistan.
The Third Pillar is the Great Empire of Kushan.
This pillar of historical – national education needs actually greater research
effort among modern specialists, but the importance of this great empire at
the Asiatic silk-crossroads has been highlighted by various foreign sources
from the Mediterranean to China. Shaped at a moment the Arsacid Empire of
Iran seemed to be collapsing, Kushan was the converging point of the land
and the sea trade routes linking the East with the West. The famous text
"Periplus of the Red Sea", written in Greek by an Alexandrian Egyptian
captain and merchant of the second half of the 1st century CE, bears evidence
to trade sea routes linking Alexandria and the Mediterranean, through the
Red Sea, with Barbarikon port of call nearby the Indus river estuary, and
further on with Central Asia and China. Through all these interactions, a great

14. Kushanic – Afghanic radiation has been noted throughout India, where local
art imitated the imperial Kushanic numismatic creations, notably the gold
coins of King Huvishka (as already presented in modern bibliography by A.
S. Altekar, P.L. Gupta, and G. Yazdani).
The Fourth Pillar is whatis conventionally called "India".
The interactions with and the vicinity of Indus Valley and the Dravidian
Deccan are so dense that it is necessary for modern Afghanis to be well
acquainted with the world of the subcontinent and Southern Asia. Even more
so, since present day Afghanistan was already the northern periphery of the
early Indus civilization that thrived in the 1st half of the 2nd millennium BCE.
The world of the Vedas, Asoka, and the Gupta dynasty are all subjects related
to the cultural background of Afghanistan.
The Fifth Pillar is Buddhism.
It is through Eastern Iran and notably Bactria that Buddhism found its way to
from Indus Valley to China, Tibet, Korea and Japan. The great Buddha statues
at Bamiyan are only one of the numerous testimonies that bear witness to the
diachronic Buddhist impact on Bactria. Buddhism's itinerary through
Afghanistan must become for every Afghani the turning point in everyone's
personal itinerary from localism to multiculturalism.
The Sixth Pillar is Manichaeism.
When Mani preached his dogma in Ctesiphon, in present day Iraq, few
Iranian magistrates around Shapur I imagined that this spiritual, religious,
cosmological and eschatological system that incorporates a non-Christian
interpretation of Jesus would soon be the first to have priests and initiates,
adepts and believers spanning from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Afghanistan
was of great importance for the diffusion of Manichaeism to Central Asia and
for the incorporation of Buddhist concepts in Mani's universal religion.
Manichaean concepts, beliefs, cults and practices survived within Central
Asiatic Islamic context and, in China, the last Manicheists performed their
rites before 100 years (until the beginning of the 20th c.). When Manichaeism
became a serious threat for the official Sassanid Iranian imperial dogma, i.e.
Mazdeism, as proclaimed by Kartir, the followers of Mani were severely
persecuted, and that is why they escaped either in the territories of today's
Afghanistan and Uzbekistan (in the East) or in Egypt (in the West). Soon
afterwards, they expanded further on.
The Seventh Pillar is Nestorian Christianity.
The most important among all the Christian theological systems that
prevailed in the Eastern Roman Empire was that of Nestorius; it was the
major Christological dispute that challenged the Patriarchate of
Constantinople. Even more so, since Nestorius rose to prominence as
Patriarch! At the same time, as Christian denomination, Nestorianism is the
closest to Islam. The 'Great Church of the East' (as the Nestorian Patriarchate

15. is named) survived down to our times, following the preaching of the Great
Aramean theologian, who emphasized that Jesus was only human. Nestorius
rejected both,
a) the theological systems that considered Jesus as human and divine (two
natures) at the same time (as the mainstream Christianity accepted in
Constantinople / Istanbul and in Rome), and
b) the Christological disputes as per which Jesus was only of one nature,
divine and human at the same time (as the Monophysitic / Miaphysitic
churches of Syria, Armenia, Georgia, Egypt, Nobatia, and Abyssinia claimed).
Despite the existing serious religious differences (icons were prohibited
among Nestorians), Nestorianism was always viewed as an Eastern Roman
political tool for dangerous infiltration in Iran, and therefore persecuted.
Through the territories of the modern states of Afghanistan and Uzbekistan,
Nestorianism spread out throughout Central Asia, Mongolia and China.
The Eighth Pillar is the Central Asiatic milieu of the Turkic
Peoples.
The great migration of Asiatic peoples to the West may have been felt very
early in Afghanistan with the arrival of the Ephthalite (White) Huns, but ever
since Afghanistan was either a shelter or a crossing point for numerous Altaic
– Turkic peoples. Becoming more acquainted with the Turkic cultural
environment is for an Afghani a matter of deep introspection, even more so
since Uzbeks, Turkmens and Hazaras constitute a very sizeable part of
Afghanistan's population.
The Ninth Pillar is Islam.
Instead of exclusively focusing on local Islamic dynasties, like the
Ghaznavids, Afghanis should be rather initiated into the universal nature and
the multicultural aspects of diachronic Islam; Djenne Djenno and the Malian
Islam, Andalusia and Kairouan, the Funj, the Bejas, the Furs and Harar in
Northeastern Africa, Bosnia and Konya, Istanbul and Bursa, plus a wide
spectrum of Central Asiatic, Iranian, Yemenite, Somali and East African,
Dravidian, Malay, and Islamic monuments and cultural heritage will give the
average Afghani the keys to a real understanding of the historical Islam. This
will be the best remedy for the disastrous work of Islamic falsification as
carried out so long by the illiterate Taliban for the benefit of the English and
French colonials.
The Tenth Pillar is Modern West.
Finally, an introduction to, and presentation of, the basic concepts and
constituent elements of the Western World will complete the educational
picture of modern Afghani students, preparing them for our multicultural
world in the best possible way. This will involve the following: the emergence
of the Renaissance and the Humanities, the rise of Classicism and
Romanticism, the religious wars in Modern Europe and America, the Western
colonization of America, Asia and Africa, the impact of the European

16. philosophers, the formation of the modern states, the establishment of
political ideologies and the imposition of politics over religion, i.e. modern
'democracy' and 'human rights', the iniquity of French Anti-Christian
conspiracy, the viciousness of French anti-clericalism, the foundations of the
perverted modern western scholarship (Hellenism, Greco-Romano-centrism,
Orientalism), the ideologization of modern Western sciences (Darwinism,
evolutionism, monism, materialism, communism), the ensuing collapse of the
human moral order among the Western societies, and the western Orientalist
machination and fabrication of nationalism, Pan-Arabism, and Islamism as
tools for colonized masses' engulfment in darkness and ignorance.
The success of such an ambitious educational project relies certainly on
international and humanitarian help. The correct manuals must be written,
the proper human resources must be trained, plus the material support must
be offered. A critical point will be the translation of many books and historical
sources into the basic languages of Afghanistan. Without a solid and well-
prepared infrastructure, which will give the Afghani schoolchildren and
students real access to textual sources, literary and archaeological evidence,
and vast bibliography, any possible course, any lecture, any proper manual
will remain superficial. For this infrastructure project, a manual titled 'Sources
for a Multicultural Afghanistan' for the use of teachers, instructors and
professors must be first elaborated.
By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
Published: 11/9/2004